2010 NHL Winter Classic
The 2010 NHL Winter Classic, known as the 2010 NHL Winter Classic presented by Bridgestone via corporate sponsorship, was the third edition of the NHL Winter Classic, an annual outdoor ice hockey game held by the National Hockey League (NHL), played on January 1, 2010 as a regular season game at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts between the Boston Bruins (the home team) and the Philadelphia Flyers. The Bruins won the game 2–1 in overtime. After the game, the roster of the United States men's Olympic team for the 2010 Winter Olympics was released, which included Bruins' goaltender Tim Thomas. The New York Rangers had previously also been considered as an opponent for the Bruins. The game was telecast on NBC in the United States; in Canada, CBC televised the game in English, and RDS held the French language rights, while ESPN America televised the contest in Europe. Radio rights nationally were held by Sirius XM Radio, while WBZ-FM in Boston and WIP in Philadelphia used their local announcers. Additionally, there was pre-and-post game coverage on the NHL Network in the United States and Canada. Since there will be no NHL All-Star Game in the 2009–10 season due to the 2010 Winter Olympics, which are being held in Vancouver, British Columbia in February, the Winter Classic served as the league's biggest showcase game of the season. The NHL was in negotiations with the Calgary Flames to host a second outdoor game on New Years Day at McMahon Stadium, likely against another Canadian opponent. However, that did not take place as announced in the 2009-10 NHL season schedule, which was released on July 15, the same day that the game site and teams were announced. Site selection Early reports indicated six possible venues for the 2010 game: the Las Vegas Strip, Yankee Stadium, the Rose Bowl, either Nationals Park or Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington, D.C., Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan, and Fenway Park. The Rose Bowl stadium was eliminated as they host the Rose Bowl Game and the 2010 BCS National Championship Game. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman visited Yankee Stadium on February 12, 2009 to take a tour of the new facility with New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, where the trio discussed the possibility of having the game in the Bronx. Uniforms For this game, the Flyers wore a reverse of their current home uniform, a white replica of their 1973–74 home jersey, but with a black nameplate with white lettering. The Bruins wore a uniform designed by former great Cam Neely in dark yellow with brown pants with dark yellow socks with brown and white striping and a different "B" in their famous "Hub" logo introduced in 1948–49 on their 1955–57 uniforms; brown and gold were the Bruins' colors when they entered the NHL for its 1924–25 regular season. Both jerseys are on Reebok's NHL Edge Uniform template. Pregame The ceremonial faceoff was conducted between Hall of Fame members representing the respective teams: Bobby Orr for Boston and Philadelphia's Bobby Clarke. The national anthems were performed by Daniel Powter(O Canada) and James Taylor (The Star-Spangled Banner). Prior to the entrance of the players, pregame entertainment was provided by Celtic punk band the Dropkick Murphys, performing I'm Shipping Up to Boston. Game summary During the scoreless first period, the first fight in a Winter Classic occurred as Shawn Thornton and Daniel Carcillo engaged each other, with Carcillo getting the takedown. At 4:42 in the second period, Danny Syvret scored his first NHL goal with a shot from the blueline as the distracted Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas shoved Philadelphia's Scott Hartnell from his front. Over the course of the game, especially toward the end of each period, the ice became noticeably choppy, resulting in several odd man rushes. After Kimmo Timonen took a tripping penalty on Zdeno Chara, the Bruins tied the game on the powerplay with Mark Recchi tipping in a Derek Morris slap-pass with 2:18 left in the game. During overtime, Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas made a pair of saves to keep the Bruins in the game. On the Bruins' counter-attack up the ice, Marco Sturm tipped a Patrice Bergeron pass past Flyers goaltender Michael Leighton to win the game. Team rosters | valign="top" | |- | colspan="2" style="font-size:90%;" | Tuukka Rask dressed for the Boston Bruins as the back-up goalie and did not enter the game. Brian Boucher dressed for the Philadelphia Flyers as the back-up goalie and did not enter the game. |} References Category:Boston Bruins Category:Philadelphia Flyers Category:2010 in hockey